


High Hopes

by Jimaine



Series: Panic At The Disco [1]
Category: Magic the Gathering
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Death, Kid Fic, Song fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 16:04:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20763122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jimaine/pseuds/Jimaine
Summary: Life wasn't easy for a smart kid with everything stacked against him, but at least Ral always had one person who believed in him…The day Ral loses his mother.





	High Hopes

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first part of a two part series inspired by a pair of Panic At The Disco Songs. This one, 'High Hopes' and the next one, 'Hey Look Ma, I Made It'. Look forward to the next one soon. I wanna give a shout out to Wrexie for your insight! Also mad props to both my betas EveryDayBella and Thren! You two are awesome and working with you never feels like work!

Ral picked his way through the old scrap yard. Being younger and therefore smaller and, honestly, quite a bit skinnier than the other 'salvagers' certainly had its advantages. He could get into the small nooks and cracks the adults couldn't. Sure there were other kids, but they were awkwardly working off the instructions of older salvagers. Ral knew  _ exactly  _ what to look for. 

Of course, that meant he had to be extra careful getting back out again. At this point, many of the adults recognized this ability, and simply waited for him. It demanded strategy. He had to either wait them out until no one was left in the junkyard, or wait until multiple interested parties were congregating; multiple parties he knew didn't like each other. They would inevitably start a fight and he could slip away with his haul unnoticed, just like he had today. As the sounds of shouting and brawling faded behind him, Ral Zarek picked his way back to the only place he’d ever known as home. 

~*~

Night had fallen when Ral finally reached his front door. With any luck his deadbeat of a dad had already drunk himself to sleep—with what little money he made—and wouldn't bother Ral for being out so late. His mother hearing didn't worry him, she understood. She was the only one who saw all the hidden things that bubbled up inside of him, the need, the desire, the  _ drive _ to be something better, and she was the only one who encouraged him.

And she was dying.

Ral steeled himself as he pushed into the apartment that could barely be called a home. The walls were so paper-thin they did nothing to keep out the cold or the wet. The mildew and mold grew unchecked along the walls, and all the scrubbing in the world couldn't get rid of it. Then there was the noise. Ral's family knew every intimate detail about every neighbor in their building, and they knew theirs.

His father sat passed out in a chair snoring loudly, the bottle still lolling in his hand. Ral snuck over to him, grabbing it gently and set it on the table beside the man. If he dropped it in his sleep the sound would wake him, and then there would be trouble to pay.

Ral carefully made his way through the small living area, mindful of the creakier floorboards; he'd long since memorized their pattern. Patterns were easy. Patterns made sense—orderly, like math and equations, you just moved the numbers around until they worked. If only Ral could do that with people. Slipping into the bedroom, Ral gripped his bag a little tighter and held his breath, completely silent.

A moment passed while his heart hammered loudly in his chest. Then he heard it—the soft sound of his mother breathing—and Ral finally let out the breath he’d been holding. 

She'd fought now for two years, and every time he left her he lived with the terror that this time when he came back, she'd be gone. He stood there for a moment, the dark broken only by a few anemic shreds of pale moonlight, and told himself that grown ups didn't cry. His greatest fear wasn't that his mother would die. He’d more or less made peace with that. His greatest fear was that she would die alone, while he was out scavenging for scrap. But he had no other choice. His mother couldn't work anymore, and his dad just drank whatever he made. If they were going to eat, if his mother was going to get her medicine—for all the good it did her—then Ral had to leave the house, which meant Ral had to leave his mother. Taking one more shaky breath, Ral approached the bed, sitting on the edge of it.

"Mom," he said softly. She didn't stir and he shook her shoulder—the one not covered in bandages. "Mom?"

She stirred, her eyes blinking open and smiled when she saw him. "Ral." Lifting her uninjured hand she waited for him to take it with his own, which he did. "What did you bring me today?" Her voice was rough, choppy, not the soft melodic sound it used to be back when she was singing him to sleep at night. She hadn't sung to him since the accident.

Ral smiled, releasing her hand to dig down into his bag. Tomorrow he would have to sell it all, but this was their tradition. His mom couldn't leave the house anymore—hell, she couldn't even leave her bed—so instead Ral brought the world to her. At first in flowers and pretty pieces of colored glass or pebbles, but that had worn thin quickly. He had watched her attention falter and fade, wilted by the pain she tried so hard not to show. 

But Ral had found something better. Now he showed her what he salvaged. More than that, he told her about what he would build with it if he had the chance. Where desperate stories about some random bauble he’d picked up failed to help, speaking about his loftiest plans and wildest dreams always kept her focused, kept her with him. So Ral told her excited stories about the latest breakthroughs from the Izzet league and his theories for what could be next, sketched out in discarded capacitors and fractured mizzium coils. Whenever he peeked in to see his mother lying in bed alone everything about her looked painfully haggard and dim. But while he told her all the things he could do,  _ would _ do—just as soon as he worked out a way out of here—her gaze lit up again. 

Ral was just describing a theoretical application for sonic compressors with illustrative gestures when he felt his mother's hand on his cheek and stopped, blinking. She looked up at him, and her smile was bright and brilliant, even though it only reached half of her face. "You're going to do amazing things some day, baby."

Ral grimaced, flushing, and looked away—but his mother brought him back around to meet her eyes, one pale green and full of sparkle, the other dead and unseeing.

"You will," she stated. "You're smart. Smarter than me, or your father, or all the other kids at that school."

Ral forced a smile, but looked away again. He didn't have the heart to tell her he had stopped going almost a year ago. It was too expensive, and he needed the time to pick up odd jobs around the neighborhood. It was her dream that he get an education, that he do something with his life other than factory work. He'd got in with a scholarship, blown the entrance exam out of the water, but it didn't cover everything. While his mother had been working it had been doable, but now…

Besides, he had never fit in there, with all those rich kids. No one had been upset the day he stopped going. And she was right. He _was_ smarter than all the other kids. He was also smarter than the instructors. They just didn't have anything left to teach him. 

"Look at me," she said softly. "You rewrite the story Ral. Be something greater than all of this. Burn their preconceived notions to the ground."

"Mom…"

"Hush," she said firmly, though her eyes remained kind. "You can do it, Ral. You have a gift," Ral started to roll his eyes but she cuffed him on the back of the head. "Don't mock your mother."

Ral started, and rubbed his head, laughing quietly. "Yeah, mom..."

"You can do anything you put that brilliant mind of yours to. Don't let the narrow minded notions of a bunch of folks who've only ever known the status quo tell you what you can and can't do with your life. You can be anything Ral, so be  _ great _ ." She smiled at him though it was strained, and a moment later she started to cough.

Ral stood and sat her up, rubbing her back. "I'll get you some water."

But as he turned, something hitched in his mother’s breath, and the coughing stopped. He heard her fall back down on the bed, and spun back around. She blinked at the wall across from her, and at first glance she seemed to once again be resting peacefully, but… her hand reached out to him and he took it, quickly sitting back on the side of the bed. "Mom…?"

She swallowed, and opened her mouth for words, but it was a long moment before any came. There was something about her eyes, something different... and Ral knew. This was the last time he was going to talk with his mother. "Mom…" he tried again, squeezing her hand. "Mom?"

Her eye met his, and she forced a painful smile, her words finally coming. "Don't let... anything hold you back sweetheart…" she swallowed again, and rested back into the shabby pillow. "No matter what, live your life… just the way you want to… don't let anything hold you back… I-I love you Ral..." Her words faded to barely a whisper and her eyes slowly closed.

Ral felt his world crash, and tumble broken to the ground.

He was breathing heavily as he squeezed her hand, desperate for her to open her eyes just one more time. 

She didn't.

Ral stood up quickly, knocking his bag to the ground. Parts and scrap-metal spilled across the floor, with a clatter and crash that was lost in the silence ringing in his ears.

Ral ran.

He couldn't be here, couldn't be in that room. She was gone. His mother was gone.

Sliding around the corner and down the hallway he wiped at his eyes, but it did no good. Racing through the apartment he paid no heed to being quiet and heard the startled shout from his father as the man woke up. Ral didn't care. Why should he care? That man had never done a thing for him. He clearly had no use for Ral, and Ral had no use for him. His mother was gone…

He shot out the door, hearing it swing wide and eventually slam behind him. He heard it fly open a moment later, his father's voice shouting angrily after him. Ral didn't stop, taking the stairs two at a time and racing out of the building and into the streets. Rain lashed at his face, soaking his clothes, the cold seeping into his bones as he ran.

He didn't know where he was going, hadn’t had a destination in mind beyond 'not where his mother had just died', but that didn't slow him down. Nothing slowed him down, not until he got to the 'park' on the edge of town. The Selesnya had put it in as an 'outreach program'; it was really just a tree and a patch of dirt no one seemed to be able to make grass grow on.

Ral hopped the fence out of sight of the thoroughfare and collapsed on the cold, dead dirt. He rolled onto his back numbly, staring up into the sky as the rain pelted him in the face. It hadn't been raining before. It hadn't rained all day. Though it rained on Ravnica more often than not, there were always a few weeks this time of year in the dead of summer where the rain let up, and the sun shone down, and everyone actually seemed happy for a few fleeting moments. 

Ral didn't, he never did. 

Ral preferred the rain, the chaos of the storm, staying up late with his mother to watch the lightning and listen to the thunder... 

He felt his throat close and he choked on bile, turning on his side to cough into the sodden dirt. They would never do that again, he realized with a heavy breath. His mother had to be the only person on Ravnica who liked the rain as much as he did. Or...she  _ had _ been.

Ral made a fist, slamming it down into a dirty puddle, a raw sound ripping from his throat. A crack of thunder sounded in the distance, a bolt of lightning flashing at the same time. It was close, but Ral didn't move. He laid there under the withered tree on the muddy ground and told himself it was only the rain that was dripping over his face; nothing else.

Taking a deep shuddering breath, Ral pushed himself to a seated position as more lightning lit the sky. He  _ wasn't _ going to die like his mother. He wasn't going to die here, in this nowhere town with its small minds and small people. Ral looked up at the sky, turning his face into the storm as lightning stabbed at the ground, the thunder immediately following. It was  _ very _ close, but somehow it’s proximity only energized him.

Ral was going to  _ achieve _ . He was going to be  _ great _ . He was going to take this whole damn city by the reins and  _ make _ it acknowledge him, just like she’d said. 

Another lightning bolt carved a jagged path across the sky, reflecting in Ral's eyes. 

Everyone everywhere was going to know his name.


End file.
